Pastor John Gray and his wife Aventer return to the show to talk leaving Lakewood Church, what they say to kids who don’t believe in God, and much more.

SOURCE: The Breakfast Club

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/watch-john-and-aventer-gray-talk-leaving-lakewood-to-take-over-ron-carpenters-church-in-south-carolina-their-show-on-oprahs-network-and-more-on-the-breakfast-club/feed/0How ‘I Can Only Imagine’ Surged in Popularity After Secular Radio Hosts Played It on a Darehttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-i-can-only-imagine-surged-in-popularity-after-secular-radio-hosts-played-it-on-a-dare/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-i-can-only-imagine-surged-in-popularity-after-secular-radio-hosts-played-it-on-a-dare/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 16:05:26 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418386I Can Only Imagine premiers this weekend in 1,600 theaters across the U.S. The movie is based on the story behind MercyMe’s 1999 song that captivated a nation. But how that happened has some of the band’s own members scratching their heads to this day.

The song was a huge hit on Christian radio, but it reached heights no one could have predicted four years later when some shock jocks on an FM rock station in Dallas played the song on a dare.

Fitz, Tony and Big Gay Steven, then-hosts of Wild 101 FM’s “The Fitz Show,” decided to play the song as nothing more than a joke. And when they did, something unexpected happened: The phone lines lit up with requests for “I Can Only Imagine” to be played again.

The song had already run its course in Christian radio and the band had moved on, but suddenly MercyMe was in a fascinating position, as a Christian song that was intended for praise and worship had made its way onto the secular airwaves—and people were loving it.

Soon, interest in the song snowballed and the band’s record label began sending copies of it to top 40 stations across the country, challenging program managers to play it. When they did, their phones blew up as well, with the masses wanting to hear more of the Christian song.

“Word just started getting out. Our label didn’t know what to do with it. How do you even promote this?” Millard told The Church Boys podcast. “They agreed to send a copy to the stations and say, ‘Play it once and if you don’t get a reaction just throw it out.’”

He said that those who played it quickly saw the song top their charts, with MercyMe members explaining that DJs were contacting them and saying that this was the first time in their careers that people were actually calling to thank them for playing something inspirational.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-i-can-only-imagine-surged-in-popularity-after-secular-radio-hosts-played-it-on-a-dare/feed/0Jim Caviezel Says the Greatest Sin of Pastors and Actors Is Wanting to Be Likedhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/jim-caviezel-says-the-greatest-sin-of-pastors-and-actors-is-wanting-to-be-liked/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/jim-caviezel-says-the-greatest-sin-of-pastors-and-actors-is-wanting-to-be-liked/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 16:03:13 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418379Actor Jim Caviezel said he wants to be liked but that’s not his primary goal. He told ChurchLeaders, “The greatest sin of many pastors and actors is wanting to be liked…so you have to ask yourself if you want to be loved by many or loved by one (God). I talk about myself and what I want to do and my goals, but when I come back to Jesus and what he wants me to do, I have to be obedient to that.”

Caviezel stars in the upcoming movie Paul, Apostle of Christ. The faith-based film opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, March 23. He said playing the role of Luke taught him a deep lesson about forgiveness.

The movie follows the epic story of Paul, a man who went from persecutor of the church to a follower of Christ.

The movie is set in a Roman prison where Paul, played by James Faulkner, is awaiting execution under Emperor Nero. Mauritius, the ambitious prison prefect, played by Olivier Martinez, can hardly see what threat this broken man poses. Once he was Saul of Tarsus, the high-ranking and brutal killer of Christians. Now his faith rattles Rome.

At great risk, Luke the Physician (Caviezel) visits the aged Paul to comfort and tend to him—and to question, to transcribe and to smuggle out Paul’s letters to the growing community of believers. Amid Nero’s inhuman persecution, these men and women will spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and change the world.

Caviezel told ChurchLeaders that playing Luke gave him specific insight into how God would have us all respond to being wronged. “How I feel when I see a wrong, what I want to do and what God wants me to do, those are two completely different things.” Caviezel believes that struggle is born in pride. “Pride keeps us from experiencing being more whole with Christ mentally, physically and in the spirit.”

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/jim-caviezel-says-the-greatest-sin-of-pastors-and-actors-is-wanting-to-be-liked/feed/0The Danger in Appointing Secular Humanist Jason Heap to Be Navy Chaplainhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/the-danger-in-appointing-secular-humanist-jason-heap-to-be-navy-chaplain/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/the-danger-in-appointing-secular-humanist-jason-heap-to-be-navy-chaplain/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:56:18 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418376“Act naturally,” “found missing” and “deafening silence” are examples of oxymorons. Now you can add another to the list, “atheist chaplain.”

The Navy Chaplain advisory board is recommending the appointment of Jason Heap, a secular humanist, to look over the spiritual needs of sailors, marines and naval airmen.

But more than 20 Senators and 40 members of the House of Representatives have signed letters to the secretary of the Navy, asking that he deny the application. In fact, Senator Roger Wicker, one of the signers, says the plan to appoint an atheist as a chaplain appears to be based on political correctness rather than a concern for military members. In an opinion piece the lawmaker wrote, “The central question here is how an atheist chaplain can be expected to fulfill a role that, by its very nature, is supposed to serve the religious needs of our service members.”

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., is also opposed to the appointment. He told Christian News,

“What you’re really doing is now saying that we’re going to replace true chaplainswith non-chaplain chaplains. It’s just total nonsense, the idea of having a chaplain who is an atheist,” he continued. “A chaplain is a minister of the faith—someone who believes in a deity of a spiritual life who is assigned to a secular organization.”

This isn’t the first attempt by Heap to join the chaplain’s corp. In 2015 he tried to sue his way into the chaplaincy. The Navy rejected him because he planned to associate with two humanist groups instead of a religious denomination. Ultimately, the military ended up in court defending the notion that religious leaders should serve a religious purpose. They won.

Now, Heap is trying again. He holds degrees from Oxford University and Brite Divinity School, and has experience in human resources.

“As both a humanist and a scholar of religion, I have a deep knowledge and understanding of world religions,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “My purpose and focus as a chaplain will be for holistic well-being of anyone who is in need of pastoral care.”

“The idea is even more ridiculous when you consider that barely three percent of our service members even identify as atheist or humanist. To fling open the chaplaincy to any ideology or philosophy would fundamentally change an institution that’s older than the country itself! Not to mention, the House letter reminds the Navy, that “The Department of Defense’s own guidelines also reinforce the uniquely religious purpose of the chaplain corps, defining ‘religious organization’ as ‘an entity that is organized and functions primarily to perform religious ministries to a non-military lay constituency’ and defining a religious ministry professional as ‘an individual endorsed to represent a religious organization and to conduct its religious observances or ceremonies.’”

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/the-danger-in-appointing-secular-humanist-jason-heap-to-be-navy-chaplain/feed/0How Prayer and Fasting Set Christian Author and Speaker John Bevere Free From Pornhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-prayer-and-fasting-set-christian-author-and-speaker-john-bevere-free-from-porn/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-prayer-and-fasting-set-christian-author-and-speaker-john-bevere-free-from-porn/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:56:10 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418371Pornography is a problem in America.

Every second 28,258 users are watching pornography on the Internet.

Forty million Americans regularly visit porn sites.

Thirty-five percent of all Internet downloads are related to pornography.

Every 39 minutes a new pornography video is being created in the United States.

Christian author and speaker John Bevere used to be in that group. In the video below, he shares his struggle with pornography that began when he was 11 years old.

He described himself as a “frat boy” before coming to know Christ, with many of the habits you would expect in an unbeliever. He drank too much and he watched pornography.

After receiving Christ his taste for alcohol left immediately. But pornography did not.

Then he got married to a woman who he described as “the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.” He thought this would end his struggles. His porn addiction got worse.

A few years later Bevere entered the ministry. And his preoccupation with pornography came with him.

One day, while on staff at a prominent church, he confessed his addiction to the late pastor Lester Summrall, who had a deliverance ministry. Bevere worried that he would lose his wife and his ministry because of porn.

Summrall let him have it, “like any good father.” He prayed over Bevere and laid hands on him. “You know what happened?” Bevere asked the audience, “Nothing.”

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-prayer-and-fasting-set-christian-author-and-speaker-john-bevere-free-from-porn/feed/08 Signs of a Pastor People Will Follow by Brian Doddhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/8-signs-of-a-pastor-people-will-follow-by-brian-dodd/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/8-signs-of-a-pastor-people-will-follow-by-brian-dodd/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:47:17 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418365I meet a lot of pastors. Some have a tremendous amount of influence with the people they serve. You can tell they love their people and their people would fight hell with a water pistol for them. Others, no matter how hard they try, have limited influence at best. It feels transactional at best. I was reminded today of what often differentiates the two.

In today’s service at Piedmont Church in Marietta, Ga., student pastor Daniel Roberts was delivering the offering talk. He told the story of his wife, who teaches 2nd grade, overhearing a child telling his classmates that he has no bed and must sleep on the sofa. Daniel’s wife came home and asked if there was anything their family or the church could do.

It was then Daniel said the words which is a sure sign you are a pastor people will follow. Daniel said, “I’ll call Marlon. He’ll know what to do.”

The Marlon he was referring to is Marlon Longacre, Piedmont’s community pastor. Marlon is incredibly popular in our church and community and a key catalyst for our church’s growth.

After hearing about this young child sleeping on a sofa, Marlon immediately went into action. He sent out a note to his email list and had not one, not two, but THREE beds within 24 hours. Additional calls are also coming in about sheets, pillows, bed spreads and delivery trucks.

One call to Marlon solved all the problems facing this child’s sleeping arrangements in one day.

The following are 8 Signs of a Pastor People Will Follow I gleaned from Daniel’s story:

A Pastor People Will Follow Is Trustworthy – Marlon has a proven track record for success. People can count on him.

A Pastor People Will Follow Is Accessible – When Daniel reached out to Marlon, he could actually get him to answer his phone.

A Pastor People Will Follow Is Proactive – Marlon immediately went into action.

A Pastor People Will Follow Is Compassionate – Marlon genuinely cares about the poor and under-resourced in our community. He loves people.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/8-signs-of-a-pastor-people-will-follow-by-brian-dodd/feed/0All Other Ground Is Sinking Sand by Shannon Popkinhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/all-other-ground-is-sinking-sand-by-shannon-popkin/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/all-other-ground-is-sinking-sand-by-shannon-popkin/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:42:31 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418362As I stood out on my front porch, chatting with a friend, I noticed something across the street. I said to her, “Does it look like that chimney is tilting?”

A couple of weeks later, it was obvious that I hadn’t been imagining things. You could see a thin line of daylight shining between my neighbor’s house and the beautiful two-story stone chimney that used to be attached. It was definitely tilting.

Then one morning, a month or so later, there were loud creaking, groaning and cracking noises as the chimney pulled away and started to collapse. It landed on the ground within an hour—narrowly missing the other neighbor’s house by only a few feet. The once beautiful stone chimney now lay in a giant heap of rocks, leaving behind the naked corner of the house.

Foundation of Integrity

I later learned that the builder of this beautiful house had cut corners by not placing a foundation beneath the chimney. He built a two-ton chimney—literally—on shifting sand.

Integrity, the Bible tells us, is like a load-bearing foundation for life. Proverbs says,

“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out” (Prov. 10:9, emphasis added).

Are you a woman who craves security? Most of us do. No woman wants to wake up to creaking and groaning as some part of her world collapses. Nor does any woman want a gaping hole torn into her life. The Bible says that we can have the security we crave by walking—step by step, one decision after another—with integrity.

I’ve heard it said that honesty is telling the truth to other people, but integrity is telling the truth to yourself. Integrity is doing what is right, no matter who’s looking. It’s living a life that lines up with what God—who sees just as well in the dark as in broad daylight—says is good.

Wise and Foolish Living

Integrity isn’t based just on what you know, but how you live. Jesus told a story about the difference between knowing what you should do and actually doing it:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matt. 7:24–27, emphasis added).

Usually I think of wisdom as something you know. But Jesus, speaking of wisdom, puts the emphasis on what you do. He says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man” (v. 24).

Jesus used this story as the punctuation mark at the end of His Sermon on the Mount. He had just addressed anger, lust, divorce, retaliation, loving your enemies, giving to the needy and laying up treasure in heaven. It was as if He laid out the blueprints for a sturdy life, then asked, “Now, who’s going to build according to my plan?”

I’ve heard people say, “It sure would be nice if God would show Himself and tell us exactly how we should live.” But God did. Jesus showed up in the flesh and devoted this whole sermon (among many) to laying down measurements for right and wrong, good and evil, wisdom and foolishness. These people heard God Himself tell them how they should live.

But then so have we.

Unless you’re new to this blog or new to Jesus and His church, I’m guessing you have a Bible. I suspect that in most instances you know what God says is right and good. But are you living according to God’s blueprints? Or is your life—as Proverbs 10:9 puts it—“crooked”?

Three Tips From Jesus on Building Security

Consider with me three observations from Jesus’ story about the two houses. Let’s think through what it means to lay a foundation by having integrity—by doing what we know is right.

1. Lay a foundation now.

In Jesus’ story, by the time the storm comes it’s too late to think about weatherproofing the house. The foundation has already been chosen.

It’s true in life, too. Picture two women who sit with their families in the same row at church, week after week. Both women hear the sermons. Both listen to truth. But when they file out each Sunday, their lives head in different directions. The first woman acts on her convictions on a weekly basis—even in drastic ways. But the second woman talks herself out of any conviction she feels. She rationalizes or procrastinates or gets busy.

So which woman is prepared to withstand the coming storms? Jesus says it’s the first woman, who has built her life on the rock. And why? Because back when she was filing out of church each week, she didn’t cave in to rationalization, procrastination or busyness. She didn’t lie to herself about her sin. Instead she acted on her convictions. She followed God’s blueprints for her life. Over time, her obedience and convictions have cemented into place. Her security in the storm was put down long before the first crack of thunder.

The second woman, however, never laid a foundation. She has always caved in to her selfishness or fear or laziness. And now, when the stakes are higher, she stands only on shifting sand. She has no rock-solid foundation of obedience to steady her as the winds of fear, disappointment, grief and anger howl.

Picture yourself, sliding out of your row each week at church. How do you respond to conviction? Is your heart tender to the Lord’s prompts? Are you quick to lay aside your pride or selfishness and realign yourself with God’s standards? Or do you lie to yourself about your sin and easily dismiss the Spirit’s conviction?

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/all-other-ground-is-sinking-sand-by-shannon-popkin/feed/0Was the Apostle Paul Married at One Point? By Denny Burkhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/was-the-apostle-paul-married-at-one-point-by-denny-burk/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/was-the-apostle-paul-married-at-one-point-by-denny-burk/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:38:43 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418358In my sermon this morning at Kenwood Baptist Church, I made the case that the Apostle Paul was not always single but was once married. This observation emerges from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9. You can download the full sermon here.

Here’s how we know that Paul was once married. Paul writes:

8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.

If we want to understand how this verse applies to us, we need first of all to whom it is addressed. Your English versions say that Paul addresses “the unmarried and the widows.” It’s clear what Paul means by “widows.” He’s referring to any woman who was once married but whose husband has died. But to whom is Paul referring when he says “the unmarried”?

Some readers interpret the “unmarried” generically as anyone who happens to be unmarried, regardless of how they got into that situation (e.g., Ciampa and Rosner). For this reason, they think that the “unmarried” would include both the widowed, the divorced and those who have never been married. On this view, Paul means to address all Christians who happen to be unmarried.

I think this interpretation is mistaken. It may be that Paul’s words have implications for all who are unmarried, but I think Paul’s reference to the unmarried refers to widowers specifically. There are a number of reasons for this. Not the least of which is the fact that the Greek word for “widower” was rarely used in ancient Greek and was never used in the Koine period (Fee).

For some reason, first-century speakers did not use the word “widower.” My hunch is that they didn’t use it because of the negative social connotation attached to the term. In the first century, a widow was not only bereft of her husband, she was also often destitute. It was a patriarchal culture, and to be without a husband was to be in an extremely vulnerable position. That vulnerability is why the “widows” and “orphans” are often paired together in the Bible (e.g., James 1:27). In a patriarchal culture where there’s no social security safety net, widows and orphans are extremely socially disadvantaged.

A husband who lost his wife in that culture did not experience the same social hardship that a widow did. A widow is unmarried and destitute. But a man who loses his wife is simply unmarried. He is not destitute. And I suspect that is why Paul and other Greek writers didn’t use the term widower to refer to such men. They were simply “unmarried.”

Paul uses the term “unmarried” two other times in this chapter to refer to those who were previously married. In verse 11, “unmarried” clearly refers to someone who was previously married but divorced. In verse 34, an “unmarried” person is distinguished from “virgins” who have never been married. That leads me to believe that “unmarried” in verse 8 also refers to someone who has been previously married. The gender is masculine in Greek, and when paired with “widows” it seems like Paul means to address those who were previously married but whose spouses have passed away.

I would tweak one small thing about the ESV rendering. It’s not as literal as it could be. There is no Greek term that corresponds to the word “single.” So if you just drop that word, it gives you a more literal sense:

“It is good for them to remain…as I am.”

“Remain” means to continue on in a certain state of existence. In their case, that state was one of widowhood. And Paul says “as I am.” This suggests that Paul is putting himself into the same category that they are. But it is not a category of singleness in general but a category of widowhood in particular. It is for this reason that many interpreters—including myself—believe that these words imply that Paul was previously married.

2. Easter Is An Open Door

More unchurched people go to church on Easter than any other Sunday of the year. It’s also when they’re more likely to make real commitments to Jesus than any other day.

Why would I close that door by using a term I have to interpret?

3. Using The Word Won’t Tempt Anyone To Worship Pagan Gods

The primary argument against using the term Easter to celebrate the risen Christ is that the word may have pagan roots. (Or it may not. More on that in Point 4).

But calling it Easter doesn’t mean my church is worshiping the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre any more than calling it Resurrection Sunday means we’re worshiping the pagan Sun God. We’re also not worshiping the Norse god Friggon Good Friday.

While we’re at it, no one thinks we’re compromising with paganism when we use the terms January and March, which were named after the Roman gods Janus and Mars. We also accept the names of the planets without worshiping the Roman gods they were named after.

If you’re Peter, you begin with the gracious fatherhood of God. Speaking to marginalized first-century Christians suffering mistreatment and social estrangement, he comforts them with the knowledge that they are “elect exiles” only by the sovereign “foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Pet. 1:1–2). And this isn’t just any Father, but the one who deserves praise because, according to “his great mercy,” he has given them “new birth into a living hope” through Jesus Christ (1:3) and an unspoiled inheritance in the heavens (1:4).

So, despite their present suffering (1:6), they are even now being kept and preserved by God for salvation (1:5). God is their loving Father who sees all and will provide for his sons and daughters.

So far, so good. But then you encounter a curveball: “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” (1:17). Fear the Father who judges?

I know God is Father, Judge, King, and much else, but the unblushing way Peter runs Father and Judge together sounds a note often absent in more recent preaching on the gospel of adoption. We usually hear not only that we are forgiven and justified by Christ, but that we are also named children of God (1 John 3:1). In Christ, we no longer live the life of slaves, but that of sons and daughters, since we have received the Spirit of the Son who allows us to cry out with the tender intimacy of love, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).

But if we have the love of the Father, what place is there for fear and judgment, since “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18)? Christ shows us God’s warm, fatherly heart. It seems like a natural dichotomy: We know God as either Father or Judge, but not both.

Peter seems cheerfully unaware of this binary. Perhaps Jesus addressing God as “Holy Father” (John 17:11) or his instruction to pray that God’s name be treated as holy before anything else (Matt. 6:9) stamped Peter with a deep sense of the majestic and incomparable purity of God’s loving fatherhood.

And since our Father is holy, we’re called to be holy, set apart, as well (1 Pet. 1:15–16). We’re brought in to be “obedient children” who don’t conform to our old patterns of folly and sin (1:14). Indeed, the Holy Father cares about our holiness so much that it was at great cost, by “the precious blood of Christ” (1:19), that he redeemed us out of wickedness.

Churches were divided. Leadership was concentrated in the denominations. Believers eschewed cultural influence. Liberal modernism was on the move. Then God made Billy Graham.

The first time Ruth Bell saw her future husband, he was dashing down the dormitory steps two at a time. Now there’s a young man who knows where he’s going! she thought. But in fact Billy Graham had no idea where he was going; no idea that he would travel the planet preaching the gospel to more people than anyone in history. Ruth’s second impression, however, was spot on target: “He wanted to please God more than any man I’d ever met.” This desire, more than anything, set him apart. In an era when evangelicals lived expectantly in the shadow of the Second Coming, Billy Graham was odd in hoping the Lord would tarry: “I sure would like to do something great for him before he comes.”

The Lord did tarry, and Graham made the most of it. If there were a Mount Rushmore for English-speaking evangelists, Graham would be the fifth in granite, alongside Whitefield, Finney, Moody, and Sunday. For the most part, it’s easy to imagine why huge crowds pushed and shoved to hear them preach. George Whitefield—short and cross-eyed, with the voice of a tornado—cavorted, posed, and wept on outdoor platforms as he brought Bible dramas to life. Charles Finney had terrifying eyes that drilled out soft spots in the soul, his fiery preaching about the wrath of God going straight to the exposed nerves. Billy Sunday was charming, with jazzy suits, movie-star looks, and a smile that lit up auditoriums. But up on stage, after joking and mugging and flattering the VIPs, he would throw down his hat, rip off his tie, and jump onto the pulpit—sometimes waving a large American flag—attacking sin and beseeching sinners to come to Jesus.

Dwight Moody’s appeal is harder to figure. Of grandfatherly mien, he was portly and genial. He preached less about sin and more about love. All the old drawings of him in the pulpit give the impression he must have been stolid and ponderous. Yet it was Moody—more than Whitefield, Finney, and Sunday put together—who was Billy Graham’s true predecessor. It was Moody whom Graham admired; Moody who, in fact, made it possible for Graham to do what he did. For “Crazy” Moody was the architect who drew up the plans and laid the foundation for 20th-century evangelicalism. Then Billy Graham took over the project and built it to dimensions beyond any of Moody’s craziest dreams. By the start of the 21st century, the Moody-Graham project had reshaped the skyline of American Christianity and had launched a new kind of ecumenical movement that reached into every corner of the globe.

Back to the Future

It’s easy to forget that Billy Graham’s early pulpit style owed more to Whitefield and Sunday than to Moody. He pranced and shouted until his hair was a mop. He clenched his fists, pointed his fingers like pistols, and spoke so fast that German newspapers called him “God’s Machine Gun.” Graham’s eyes were arresting—sharp blue, blazing out from dark sockets. His preaching, like Whitefield’s, was sometimes performance art; it produced this description in 1950 by an astonished Boston reporter:

He prowls like a panther across the rostrum. … He becomes a haughty and sneering Roman, his head flies back arrogantly, and his voice is harsh and gruff. He becomes a penitent sinner; his head bows, his eyes roll up in supplication, his voice cracks and quavers. He becomes an avenging angel; his arms rise high above his head and his long fingers snap out like talons. His voice deepens and rolls sonorously—the voice of doom. So perfect are the portrayals that his audience sits tense and fascinated.

Like Sunday, Graham’s early preaching seamlessly blended God and country, most often in warnings about the threat of communism. “Either communism must die, or Christianity must die, because it is actually a battle between Christ and anti-Christ,” he said. The answer was “old-fashioned Americanism. Through the ideals of early Americanism we built the greatest nation ever to exist in all history.”

But Graham’s future lay behind Sunday in territory that Moody had staked out. Moody’s genius had been his ability to draw together and fuse traditional evangelical touchstones—a Bible-based, conversion-centered faith; simple preaching and popular songs; extensive publicity and self-promotion; and a restless “I-must-keep-working-for-the-Lord” style—with newer elements like dispensational premillennialism and an urgency for foreign missions. He then poured this mixture into a new institutional mold—the parachurch organization. After Moody, evangelical visionaries weren’t so much churchmen as entrepreneurs launching their own non-denominational start-ups, employing lay workers to carry out highly specialized missions.

At the same time Moody was creating a new evangelical synthesis, an anti-supernatural form of Christianity calling itself modernism (or liberalism) began entrenching itself in the seminaries and headquarters of the large northern Protestant denominations. When conservatives tried and failed to push them out of these “mainline” denominations in the 1920s, the center of evangelical gravity shifted from the denominations to the parachurch network started by Moody. It turned out that the independence and non-denominational character of the parachurch gave evangelicals a tremendous advantage. They could bypass denominational leadership and go directly to the people with a simple, vibrant evangelicalism that transcended denominational differences. Billy Graham would exploit this advantage better than anyone before or since.

By the time Billy was a teenager, Moody-style evangelicalism had become more important to his parents than the strict Presbyterianism of their North Carolina church. His mother got dispensationalism from the parachurch network, and his father helped bring revivalist Mordecai Ham to town. After sitting under Ham’s glare for several nights, Billy finally did what he would spend a lifetime asking others to do—he got out of his seat, went forward, and soberly made his decision for Christ.

When Billy was ready for college in 1936, the parachurch network provided all the options he and his parents considered. The differences between fundamentalism (which stressed doctrinal purity and attacks on liberal theology) and evangelicalism (which stressed evangelism and discipleship) were already emerging, and Billy’s college experiences foreshadowed which side of the divide he would end up on. The rigidity of fundamentalist Bob Jones University turned out to be a poor fit, but Florida Bible Institute and Wheaton College—both part of the Moody network—taught him lessons he never forgot. He learned that despite denominational differences, there existed at the grassroots level of all of American Protestantism a common-denominator Bible faith to which an evangelist could appeal. At Wheaton he also encountered a student culture with little interest in attacking liberalism. Talented Wheaton graduates from that period were taking up Moody’s blueprint and filling in the blanks, starting new parachurch ministries like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Trans World Radio, and Christian Service Brigade.

In 1943 Billy and Ruth married and took a pastorate outside Chicago, but not for long. Out on the East Coast, Wheaton alumnus Percy Crawford was cooking radio, revivalism, and youth culture into a confection that drew thousands of young people to Saturday night rallies. Evangelical entrepreneurs in other cities quickly started similar programs, calling them Youth for Christ (YFC). Wheaton alumnus Torrey Johnson brought YFC to Chicago and tapped 25-year-old Graham as his featured speaker. Crawford’s flashy clothes, zippy programming, rapid-fire preaching, and “bigger-better-faster” mentality fit Graham perfectly. Within months, Johnson organized most of the nation’s independent rally organizations into a single Youth for Christ International and hired Graham to be its first paid evangelist.

Graham hit the road and never looked back. By 1946 YFC rallies were drawing a million kids every Saturday and attention in the nation’s press. Within two years Graham and his platform team of Cliff Barrows, George Beverly Shea, and Grady Wilson were holding their own revivals, little knowing that they’d be working together for the rest of their careers. After just six revival campaigns, Billy Graham—all of 31 years old—rocketed into national fame with his wildly successful eight-week crusade in Los Angeles.

Critics were sure that Graham’s crusades were an anachronism, the death-rattle of the bad old days of American Christianity. But they failed to see that mass-meeting revivalism was only the building’s façade. Behind that façade stood an impressive superstructure—Moody’s synthesis of traditional evangelical beliefs, fresh ideas, and new institutional forms. The fundamentalist-modernist controversies had only temporarily halted construction on Moody’s project. Now the laborers were back on the job, and the most important of them would prove to be Billy Graham.

Building the New Evangelicalism

Nineteenth-century newspapers turned Moody into a celebrity. He wasn’t thrilled about it—he hadn’t an attention-seeking bone in his body—but it was a good bargain. The newspapers needed stories; his campaigns needed publicity. The more publicity he got, the more people he could pull into his gospel lifeboat.

Billy Graham embodied the same paradox. He was a genuinely humble person who spent his long life drawing public attention to himself. Graham’s parachurch organization bore his name—the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA)—and its impressive publicity efforts always centered on the evangelist himself. Ever-anxious about attendance at an upcoming crusade, Graham was known to complain, “I don’t see my picture up enough.” Most of the time, Graham was blessed with excellent press coverage. In the early years it seems likely that Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Lifemagazines, and William Randolph Hearst, who owned a large chain of newspapers, were attracted by the anti-communism part of Graham’s message. But in the main, the reasons for Graham’s good relations with the press mirrored Moody’s—the evangelist needed publicity, the press needed good stories.

Graham soon had a weekly radio show and newspaper column. His decision to televise the 17 Saturday night services of his 1957 New York crusade turned him into one of the most recognized and admired men in the country. Between crusades, Graham’s friends and associates churned out a shelf full of books about the evangelist and his activities—often at Graham’s urging, always with his approval. With the help of his staff, Graham himself published 24 books. These were often pegged to topics that were popular at the time, and some sold millions of copies. He spent plenty of well-photographed time with the rich and famous, appearing on talk shows, campus tours, and celebrity golf tournaments. Nearly every book about Graham has a figurative trophy case, stuffed with photos of Graham with presidents, world leaders, and the otherwise rich and famous.

What makes all this attention-seeking paradoxical is that there was not a whiff of vainglory in it. Graham was unfailingly modest about himself and lavish in praise of others. He always treated ordinary people and lowest-level staff workers with great respect and dignity. He never accepted honorariums for speaking engagements, and most of the millions of dollars he earned in book royalties he simply gave away. He always treated his antagonists with generosity and kindness. When the famous American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr published one of his many condescending attacks, Graham simply replied, “When Dr. Niebuhr makes his criticisms about me, I study them, for I have respect for them. I think he has helped me to apply Christianity to the social problems we face.” Time and again he would arrange meetings with his staunchest critics, and nearly every time his humility, transparency, and genuineness would melt their resistance. (Perhaps this explains why Niebuhr never would meet with Graham.)

Graham sincerely professed to dislike celebrity and to think nothing special of the company of the famous, but the reality was more complicated. As a young man in the first flush of fame, he pressed hard for an appointment with President Truman. In his late 70s, his claim in autobiography that he was reluctant to write about his famous acquaintances simply cannot be squared with the number of pages he spent doing just that. William Martin, Graham’s best biographer, shows that ultimately fame was irresistible to Graham because it was so helpful in pointing people to Christ. Graham knew “that his message would reach more people, appear more legitimate, and have a greater impact if he were viewed as an important man.”

Reach more people he did. All over the world, Graham and his team set attendance records, from the 185,000 near London in 1954 to the 250,000 in New York City’s Central Park in 1991 to the jaw-dropping 1.1 million–person crowd in Seoul in 1973. At the peak of his ministry, his newspaper column ran all over the country, Decision magazine topped out at some 4 million subscribers, and as late as 1987 his radio program aired on nearly 700 stations around the world. Graham’s quarterly prime-time television shows have been seen all over the country for decades, attracting a much larger percentage of unchurched viewers than any other religious program.

Graham did more than evangelize. By the mid-1950s he shared the vision of Harold Ockenga, Carl F. H. Henry, and others for a new evangelicalism that would shed the skin of fundamentalist extremism. It would still be conservative at its theological core but would broaden beyond dispensationalism. It would take a softer line on evolution, engage mainstream scholarship, and take “a definite liberal approach to social problems.” Most importantly, it would deploy the parachurch to spread evangelical faith among mainline Protestants and then draw them into evangelical networks.

The first step was to establish and strengthen parachurch agencies that would take this approach. Graham was the key figure in founding Christianity Today magazine, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Graham supported other key organizations like Fuller Seminary, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the National Religious Broadcasters. He encouraged numerous evangelical entrepreneurs to start their own ministries. Both Robert Schuller and James Robison began their weekly television broadcasts at Graham’s instigation. Large donations from Graham himself helped launch Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ and Vonette Bright’s International Prayer Assembly. When Kenneth Taylor couldn’t find a publisher for his Living Bible, the BGEA popularized it by distributing it to television viewers. It went on to sell 40 million copies. Most unusual of all, the BGEA regularly contributed large sums of money to other ministries like Young Life and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

The second step was to engage the mainline Protestant world. Whereas the fundamentalists had shaken the dust off their feet as they left, Graham knew that there were many evangelical pastors and laypeople still in the mainline churches. Early on, he decided to hold crusades only where sponsored by the city’s main organization of Protestant churches. The New York City crusade of 1957 was a watershed. Graham had declined earlier fundamentalist invitations to come to New York, but he accepted the invitation of the liberal Protestant Council of New York. While fundamentalists fumed that Graham was giving his blessing to liberalism, most Americans perceived that the elite of the mainline churches were giving their blessing to Graham. In one powerful symbolic move, Graham threw open the gates of the mainline churches to parachurch evangelicalism.

The result was heavy traffic in both directions, as evangelicals saturated the mainline with their message and a preponderance of Protestants relocated to districts outside the mainline walls. By the time Graham had finished his work, the old modernist dream of a non-supernatural Christianity was on life support, kept breathing only by the tenacity of mainline bureaucrats with their wistful memories of protest marches against segregation and the Vietnam War. In large measure, Moody’s dream of a truly ecumenical evangelicalism had come to pass.

Abroad, Graham was even more influential in setting into motion events that brought together evangelicals from around the world and gave them a sense that they were part of a worldwide ecumenical movement. But before he could really devote himself to this work, he had to work through the most serious temptation that faced him in the first half of his career.

The Siren Song of Political Influence

Even before the Los Angeles breakthrough, Graham called together his inner circle of Beverly Shea, Grady Wilson, and Cliff Barrows and asked them to recall every stumbling block that had tripped up evangelists. They all came up with the same list—financial misdeeds, sexual immorality, inflated reports of success, and non-cooperation with local churches. Thereafter they put all team members on a straight salary, never met alone with women, used conservative attendance reports, and involved local churches both before and after crusades. Their commitment to these safeguards, shored up by regular prayer, produced an unsurpassed record of integrity.

None of them anticipated that the greatest danger would be the temptation to exercise political influence. In 1952 Graham secured an act of Congress permitting him to hold the first-ever religious meeting on the steps of the Capitol. Speaking in a voice that foreshadowed the New Christian Right of the 1980s, Graham announced that “the Christian people” of the country would likely vote as a bloc in the election of 1952. He said he would interview every presidential candidate and communicate his preference to other clergy. At the behest of his friend Sid Richardson, a wealthy and politically well-connected Texas oilman, Graham traveled to Europe to try to persuade Dwight Eisenhower to run as a Republican. Graham served as an unpaid religious consultant during the campaign, helping Ike add “a religious note to some of his campaign speeches.” He also publicly criticized Truman’s State Department for its “many blunders” (an action he later regretted as “foolish and presumptuous”).

For the next two decades, Graham dipped in and out of politics. Presidents would brief him before trips abroad and debrief him on his return. They’d ask his advice about policy decisions, as when Eisenhower was considering sending troops to Arkansas to enforce school desegregation rulings. During the Johnson presidency, Graham—having concluded from a study of the Bible that Christians have a special obligation to the poor—aggressively lobbied Congress and did publicity on behalf of anti-poverty legislation. On celebratory occasions, like the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair, Graham could seamlessly blend the story of Jesus and an appeal to come to Christ with a message about how America was founded on faith in God and the Bible.

Graham’s critics insisted that his gospel of personal conversion neglected social reform, but Graham’s record was better than they admitted. On civil rights, Graham was early to insist that racism and segregation were completely un-Christian. In 1952 he defied the governor of Mississippi and held racially mixed meetings. A year later—before the Supreme Court had overturned a single segregation law—he defied the Chattanooga crusade committee by personally taking down the cords that marked off the black seating section. In 1956, he wrote in Life magazine that racial prejudice was a sin, and before the New York crusade in 1957, he integrated his team by hiring Howard Jones as an associate evangelist. During the crusade he had Martin Luther King Jr. brief his team about his campaign for civil rights, and then King joined him on the platform for one of the meetings. Privately, King told Graham that his crusades were helpful in breaking down segregation. Certainly the segregationists saw it that way, swamping Graham with hate mail.

It was Graham’s strong friendship with Richard Nixon that drew him into deep political water. In the 1960 presidential race against John Kennedy, Graham introduced Nixon to prominent ministers, coached him on how to appeal to Christian voters, and issued numerous barely veiled statements of support. As the election neared, Graham and his lieutenants organized a meeting that attacked the politics of Kennedy’s Roman Catholic Church. However, Graham himself didn’t attend the meeting, which provoked a furious backlash against its chair, Norman Vincent Peale. Liberal Protestants, Democratic politicians, Jewish groups, labor unions, and editorial pages—even pro-Nixon editors—issued scathing denunciations of anti-Catholic bigotry. Several newspapers and radio stations canceled Peale’s column and his program, and several speaking invitations were withdrawn. By not discussing his role in the meeting, Graham ducked the backlash. Later, on the eve of the election, Graham was asked to write a pro-Nixon piece for Life. He did so, but at the very last minute withdrew it. In both cases, Graham walked up to the brink of throwing himself into partisan politics, only to withdraw at the last moment for fear it might hurt his ministry.

Graham also promoted Nixon in the 1968 race, and his victory brought Graham into the heart of politics. Graham did many favors for Nixon: supporting his Vietnam program, reporting on meetings with world leaders, co-hosting a God-and-Country extravaganza on Independence Day, and regularly arranging meetings with conservative clergy so the White House could explain its policies. Graham stayed in close contact with the White House during Nixon’s re-election campaign and did it many favors, one of which was negotiating with Mark Hatfield to keep him from challenging Nixon for the nomination. Nixon, in return, did several favors Graham requested—making sure that evangelical parachurch workers got draft deferments, bringing a Christianity Today reporter on Nixon’s momentous China visit, and, most importantly, meeting with a group of black ministers and solving some problems they were having with the Office of Economic Opportunity.

When the S.S. Nixon hit the Watergate iceberg, a good many of those around the president went down with the ship. Graham’s initial public reaction was strong support for Nixon, but as damning evidence accumulated, Graham’s statements modulated. Soon he was taking fire from Nixon’s friends as well as his enemies, and he was probably glad that he was out of the country for most of the controversy. Graham’s deep personal love for Nixon made the Watergate revelations extraordinarily painful—he wept, he threw up—for they revealed a facet of Nixon’s character that Graham had never even glimpsed. Ruth later said that it was the most painful personal experience he had ever gone through.

Graham resolved never again to get so enmeshed in politics. When the New Christian Right began to organize, some of the biggest names in the evangelical parachurch—Bill Bright, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson—succumbed to the Falwellian temptation and began grasping for political power. Graham privately warned them not to go down that road. He’d been there, and it had nearly burned him. Besides, by this time he had caught a much grander vision—the challenge of building an international Christian movement that would be both evangelical and ecumenical.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/how-god-used-humble-evangelist-billy-graham-to-change-christianity-as-we-know-it/feed/0Study Finds That Churches Aren’t Losing Members in Large Numbers; Politics Is Not the Reason People Leavehttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/study-finds-that-churches-arent-losing-members-in-large-numbers-politics-is-not-the-reason-people-leave/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/study-finds-that-churches-arent-losing-members-in-large-numbers-politics-is-not-the-reason-people-leave/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:16:45 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418330A new study suggests that contrary to what many might think, churches are not losing members in large number and those choosing to leave due to extreme political views are mostly marginally involved with the institution.

“All we’re really seeing here is a little churn,” says Jacob Neiheisel, a co-author of the study, which is based on data from the 2012 Election Panel Study, the 2006 Franklin County Republican Primary Study and the Portraits of American Life Study.

“We don’t see people ensconced within the institutional framework leaving,” Neiheisel, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, says. “These are people at the periphery so we don’t see religious sorting where people on the left are disproportionally becoming anti-religious while people on the right are doubling-down on religion.”

The study, published in the American Journal of Political Science, also shows that the limited turnover is not contributing significantly to political polarization.

“We don’t see the kind of polarization that worries us, which is so important because it links back to the broader concern we all share when we study polarization,” Neiheisel adds. “If we’re not talking to one another on some level there’s a risk of breaking off into bubbles where people hear only the echoes of their own voice. When we start doing that we worry about things like opinion extremity and loss of tolerance. These are things that drive a contentious political environment.”

Accommodating people with mismatched political beliefs could be a difficult thing for an organization, but churches don’t exist primarily to discuss politics, Neiheisel suggests. “There are many things to keep people engaged at church. People might attend for the sermons, the small group activities or the social encounters. Churches are not one dimensional. So the people involved with their church still have access to the networks provided and the opportunities for building civic skills.”

The other co-author of the study is Anand Sokhey, an associate professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. It was led by Paul Djupe, an associate professor at Denison University.

An early version of the research was presented at the 2012 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/study-finds-that-churches-arent-losing-members-in-large-numbers-politics-is-not-the-reason-people-leave/feed/0Russell Moore Says Vladimir Putin’s Victory in Russian Elections Is ‘Bad News’ for Evangelicalshttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/russell-moore-says-vladimir-putins-victory-in-russian-elections-is-bad-news-for-evangelicals/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/russell-moore-says-vladimir-putins-victory-in-russian-elections-is-bad-news-for-evangelicals/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 15:15:05 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418327Russian President Vladimir Putin secured a landslide election victory on Sunday, keeping him in power for six more years, until 2024.

Some Christian voices, such as Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, have warned that the victory is “bad news” for evangelicals, however.

Sky News reported that Putin secured over 76.66 percent of the vote, which he was widely expected to win.

“It’s very important to maintain this unity,” Putin told a crowd near Moscow’s Red Square.

“We will think about the future of our great Motherland,” he added.

Putin continued: “I see this as a sign of trust and hope, the hope of our people that we will work as hard, with the same responsibility and effectiveness as before. Thank you for being such a powerful, millions-strong team. We will definitely succeed.”

Still, he shot down speculation that he would seek to run for president again after he completes his forth term, responding to a question: “It’s ridiculous. Do you think I will sit here until I turn 100?”

CNN noted that Putin never faced a serious challenger for his seat, with Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin coming in second place, winning only 11.79 percent of the vote.

Moore, who has two adopted Russian-born sons in his family and has spoken out against Russian policies limiting adoption options, responded on Twitter on Sunday:

“The #FakeRussianElections ‘victory’ of the Putin regime is more bad news for Russian orphans, Russian evangelical Christians, Russian people who want to live free of KGB-style authoritarianism.”

As Sky pointed out, critics have suggested that election violations have taken place, such as ballot-box stuffing and forced voting.

Others, such as Adam Schiff, Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee and U.S. Representative for California’s 28th congressional district, added in a separate tweet:

“It’s easy to get 73 percent of the vote when you bar your ‘opponents’ from running. After extolling life tenure for China’s Xi, will our President now congratulate Putin on his successful elimination of democratic opposition?”

At press time, President Donald Trump had not responded to Putin’s victory. On Sunday and Monday, he condemned, in a series of tweets, the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, including alleged collusion with the Trump campaign, by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Schiff was also referring to the fact that Putin’s biggest political opponent, Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race.

Evangelicals have meanwhile been speaking out against a law that Putin signed in 2016 that prohibits people from sharing their faith in any place that is not a government-sanctioned house of worship.

Christian sports star Tim Tebow opened up about his homeschooling experience, saying that his parents, Bob and Pam, wanted to make sure he and his siblings had love for God above all other things.

“They wanted us to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, but it wasn’t No. 1. It wasn’t the most important thing,” Tebow told Olympic medalist Jessica Mendoza for ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”

“They wanted to instill love in our hearts, love for God, love for one another. They wanted us to be able to learn a work ethic, a dedication.”

Tebow, who went on to become a football and now baseball star, said that he has “a heart to encourage the homeschool kid.”

“To let them know that they are loved, and they are special, and they might feel different, and sometimes might feel alone, sometimes might feel afraid. There might be those times where you go through that,” he stated.

The athlete, who was homeschooled until college, explained that his days were filled with Bible study and doing chores on the farm.

He had some difficulties when interacting with children who attended regular schools while playing sports, however.

“I was brand new at this place and you could tell that that group just, it had so much disdain, you know, because I wasn’t part of them,” Tebow recalled of his football playing days.

“I went to work on it, and eventually we became friends,” he added. “But people are going to view you as different, and that’s OK. And sometimes I think it’s pretty good to view yourself as different, and that’s OK.”

Tebow noted that children being homeschooled need to know that there is nothing wrong with being different.

“You can be homeschooled and you can be the cool kid, and you can break the trends and you can show that, yeah, you’re different, you’re unique, but in a good way,” he offered.

Speaking of his parents, he said: “I’m so grateful that not only they’re my parents, they’re my teachers, and also my mentors, and also my role models.”

“And they were all those things in one, and I think that’s the reason that it had such a big effect on me and my life,” the athlete explained.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/watch-tim-tebow-says-parents-homeschooled-him-to-instill-love-for-god/feed/0LISTEN: Whyte House Family Devotions: A Prayer for the Family, the Church, the Nation and the World #302 (Monday, March 19, 2018): “Satisfaction in Him,” by Billy Grahamhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/listen-whyte-house-family-devotions-a-prayer-for-the-family-the-church-the-nation-and-the-world-302-monday-march-19-2018-satisfaction-in-him-by-billy-graham/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/listen-whyte-house-family-devotions-a-prayer-for-the-family-the-church-the-nation-and-the-world-302-monday-march-19-2018-satisfaction-in-him-by-billy-graham/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 14:26:29 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418308Daniel Whyte III

My family and I have had morning devotions, or family altar as some people call it, every day ever since my wife, Meriqua, and I were married 30 years ago. We have prayed and read the Bible together as well as other devotional books as a family, and it is the only reason why this family has stayed together, and the only reason why God has blessed our family and used our family in ministry all of these years. We read Ephesians 5 and 6 every morning as it relates to the role of each member of the family and how that we need to put on the whole armor of God to fight against the devil who is seeking to destroy our family and all Christian families, churches, and Christians. So, now after 30 years of doing this in our home, we are opening this up to others who don’t have a family to pray with, who don’t have a spouse, or who are single by choice, and to encourage all families who are still intact to go back to the family altar and have devotions together every morning. In these devotions, you may hear me deal with a temptation I’m facing in my life, you may hear me rebuke my wife about not doing what she should be doing, or you may hear me get on one of my children’s cases about something they’re doing. Don’t be shocked; this is real life.

Billy Graham said, “Reading God’s Word and meditating on its truth will have a purifying effect upon your mind and heart, and will be demonstrated in your life. Let nothing take the place of this daily privilege.”

——

PRAY “THE NEW COMMON PRAYER FOR TODAY”

Almighty and most merciful Father; We have sinned, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no peace and joy in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou us, O God, who confess our sins, our faults, and our failures. Restore those of us who confess our sins and repent; According to Thy promises declared unto us in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life. To the glory of Thy holy Name. In Jesus Christ’s Name, Amen.

——

EPHESIANS 6:1-3

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

2 Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

Steven J. Cole writes in his commentary on this passage, “Paul goes on without any introduction to cite the fifth commandment. This shows that Spirit-filled children must honor their parents because God commands it. Honor goes beyond obedience in that it involves an attitude of respect and esteem. The word ‘honor’ is a Hebrew word with a root meaning of ‘weight’ or ‘heaviness.’ It is the same word often translated ‘glory’ in reference to the Lord. To glorify the Lord is to attach the utmost weight or significance to who He is and what He does. It means to assign Him the highest place because He is worthy of it. The opposite of glorifying God is to treat Him lightly, to shrug off Him and His commands as insignificant. Coupled with the idea of weight is that of value, which is the root meaning of the Greek word for honor. Gold and silver are heavy, valuable metals. We say of a valuable man, ‘He’s worth his weight in gold.’ To honor our parents is to have an attitude of respect for them that stems from the fact that we greatly value them and the contribution they’ve made to our lives. This attitude of respect and esteem will result in loving, courteous behavior towards them.”

66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.

67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

68 Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.

69 The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.

70 Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.

71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

72 The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.

Regarding this passage, Matthew Henry writes: “However God has dealt with us, he has dealt with us better than we deserve; and all in love and for our good. Many have knowledge, but little judgment; those who have both are fortified against the snares of Satan, and furnished for the service of God. We are most apt to wander from God when we are easy in the world. We should leave our concerns to the disposal of God, seeing we know not what is good for us. Lord, thou art our bountiful Benefactor; incline our hearts to faith and obedience. The psalmist will go on in his duty with constancy and resolution.”

———

PRAYER FOR THE ESTATES
1. Clergy (church)
2. Government
3. People (citizens)
4. The press (media)
5. New media/Online journalists

PRAYER FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP
– For all pastors, church leaders, denominational leaders, Bible teachers, missionaries, and ministry workers.

GOVERNMENT LEADERS

1 Timothy 2:1-2 says, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

President Donald Trump and his administration
Vice President Mike Pence
First Lady Melania Trump
Second Lady Karen Pence
All White House staff including: Director of the Domestic Policy Council Andrew Bremberg
All leaders of federal agencies including: Vice Chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States Steven Croley
All state governors including: Florida Governor Rick Scott
All city mayors including: Reno, NV, Mayor Hillary Schieve
All members of Congress including: Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski
All law enforcement officials including: Norfolk, VA, Police Chief Larry Boone
All military leaders including: Defense Secretary James Mattis / General Glenn M. Walters, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
Leaders of nations around the world including: Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Prime Minister Hani Al-Mulki
For the peace of Jerusalem

PRAYER FOR THE PEOPLE / CITIZENS

PRAYER FOR THE MEDIA

PRAYER FOR CURRENT EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD

– For the comfort of the families of 3 people killed in a hotel fire in Manila; for the recovery of the 23 who were injured.
– For the comfort of the families of ten people killed in a plane crash in Manila, Philippines
– For the comfort of the families of the 6 people killed in the bridge collapse in Miami; for the recovery of those who were injured

PRAYER REQUESTS

Marie
Please help her to continue to trust in You and lean on You

Nakia
Please lead her through the legal matter that she is facing; bless her and her fiance and have them to get married if that is Your will

Adriana
Please heal her body; bless her with enough money to pay her rent and have good medical treatment; please have Anna to come to know You as Saviour

THOSE WHO HAVE ACCEPTED CHRIST AS SAVIOR

Innockson
Sibusiso
Sarina

THOSE WHO HAVE RECOMMITTED THEIR LIVES TO CHRIST

Aletta
Rachel
Jaya

DEVOTIONAL READING: “Satisfaction in Him,” by Billy Graham

Psalm 17:15 says, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”

Is it not logical to believe that the only one who can recreate us is the One who created us in the first place? If your watch were out of order, you wouldn’t take it to a blacksmith. If your car needed overhauling, you wouldn’t go to a machine shop. Our spiritual problems can be solved only by the God who created us originally. He created us in His own image and likeness; today, by the grace of His Son, He can recreate us in the likeness of His resurrection. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are recreated and become partakers of His life. It is foolish to pursue solutions for life’s problems outside of Jesus Christ. Put your faith and trust in Him, and find solutions in His Word.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Now, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, allow me to show you how you can place your faith and trust in Him for Salvation from sin and Hell.

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

Until next time, May the Lord Bless You!

Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.

He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.

He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/listen-whyte-house-family-devotions-a-prayer-for-the-family-the-church-the-nation-and-the-world-302-monday-march-19-2018-satisfaction-in-him-by-billy-graham/feed/0US Pastor Andrew Brunson Faces 35 Years in Turkish Prison After Indictmenthttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/us-pastor-andrew-brunson-faces-35-years-in-turkish-prison-after-indictment/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/us-pastor-andrew-brunson-faces-35-years-in-turkish-prison-after-indictment/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 10:40:44 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418314A Turkish court has accepted an indictment that seeks 35 years in prison for American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested in December 2016 on allegedly false charges of espionage and terrorism, according to a report.

The Second High Penal Court in the Aegean province of Izmir has accepted the indictment written by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which demands up to 15 years in prison for crimes in the name of the Gulen movement and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and up to 20 years for obtaining state secrets for political or military espionage, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan holds the banned group responsible for the failed coup against state institutions in July 2016.

Pastor Brunson, a North Carolina native who has led a small congregation in Izmir for the past two decades, has denied the charges.

Based off testimony from a secret witness who has not been revealed, Brunson was accused of obtaining secret documents related to the goal of espionage and overthrowing the government.

Rights advocates believe that Brunson was arrested in an attempt to force the U.S. government to extradite Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who resides in Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom earlier this month condemned the charges against Brunson.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/us-pastor-andrew-brunson-faces-35-years-in-turkish-prison-after-indictment/feed/0‘I Can Only Imagine’ Ranks 3rd With $17M in Strong Opening Weekendhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/i-can-only-imagine-ranks-3rd-with-17m-in-strong-opening-weekend/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/i-can-only-imagine-ranks-3rd-with-17m-in-strong-opening-weekend/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 10:28:42 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418310The faith-based film “I Can Only Imagine” brought in $17.1 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend, going far beyond early expectations and ranking third, behind “Tomb Raider” and “Black Panther.”

Based on the true-story of Christian artist Bart Millard’s life, the family drama opened at 1,629 locations in the United States and received an A+ CinemaScore with an audience that was 67 percent female and 80 percent over 35.

This is the distributor Roadside Attractions’ highest grossing opening ever. “We felt that the film’s inspiring story of hope and forgiveness made for a very compelling collaboration,” Roadside’s co-president, Howard Cohen, said in a statement.

The weekend estimates include $6.2 million for Friday; $5.9 million on Saturday; and a projected $4.8 million for Monday. “I Can Only Imagine” has become the top faith-based movie of 2018.

About a decade ago, MercyMe’s crossover hit song, “I Can Only Imagine,” sold over 2 million digital downloads and was certified almost 3x platinum. Now, Millard’s life story showcased in the Erwin Brothers movie is hitting a high note.

Lee Strobel, the atheist-turned-Christian author behind the “The Case for Christ” book and movie, urged Christians to support the film. “Let’s get out to theaters and support the new faith-based movie ‘I Can Only Imagine,’ which is stunning Hollywood with its strong opening box office performance. It’s an excellent movie and we need to get behind solid Christian films if we expect more of them in the future,” he wrote on Twitter.

Journalist and blogger Michael Foust noted that the film beat “A Wrinkle in Time” and “Love, Simon.”

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/i-can-only-imagine-ranks-3rd-with-17m-in-strong-opening-weekend/feed/0Billy Graham in the Oval Officehttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/billy-graham-in-the-oval-office/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/billy-graham-in-the-oval-office/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 01:07:30 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418279Image: Paul Schutzer / Time Life Pictures / Getty ImagesSen. Frank Carlson (center) was key in forming the Presidential Prayer Breakfast under Eisenhower. Graham spoke at almost all of the first 15.

Journalist Nancy Gibbs recalls Graham’s relationship with six decades of American presidents.

In 2007, Time magazine veterans Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy coauthored The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House. The best-selling book chronicled Graham’s influence on American presidents from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.

On April 25, 2010, Graham hosted Barack Obama at the Graham family home in Montreat, North Carolina, making Obama the 12th chief executive to interact with Graham, something no other religious leader has done. The two of them prayed for each other during their 35-minute meeting, according to reports. (Donald Trump attended Graham’s 95th birthday party in 2013.)

Graham’s relationships with different presidents varied widely. He skinny-dipped in the White House pool with Lyndon Johnson, played golf with John F. Kennedy, and counseled the Clintons after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

But Graham acknowledged that his relationship with Richard Nixon, tainted by partisan politics, was the one most harmful to the evangelist’s gospel mission. Timothy C. Morgan, director of Wheaton College’s journalism program, interviewed Gibbs before Graham’s death.

As journalists, Michael Duffy and you had rare opportunities to interact one on one with Billy Graham. How would you describe him in personal terms?

One description I love is the writer who, looking at Billy Graham’s long arms and long legs, said that it looked as though God had designed him to be seen from a distance.

This figure could fill a stadium with 50,000 or 100,000 people, night after night after night. We imagined this huge public personality. What was most surprising to us the first day we went to Montreat was how completely disarming he was. We were struck by his humility, the gentleness, the quiet, confident grace.

He seemed perhaps the most unguarded man I’ve ever interviewed. He was not spinning, not looking to airbrush his history. The thing he was most worried about was that he might make a mistake or forget to give someone credit for something. The charisma was compelling—what an epic figure.

Any clues on how he got to be that way?

Of course, every president wanted to know that. Presidents very much want to get 50,000 people to come out and hear them. They were deeply curious how this one man was able to do that. As you might well expect, Graham’s answer was, “Well, I didn’t do it. God’s doing it.”

To which the presidents would say, “Well, okay. But there are a lot of preachers out there preaching the gospel who are not filling Yankee stadium night after night, so there must be something in particular about you.”

Graham had a great gift for keeping things simple. He was a very smart, thoughtful man. He never felt like he needed or wanted to stray from the core gospel message of God’s saving grace.

He made it possible for people to let down their own guard. We did go to his last crusade in New York. It was quite extraordinary watching 100,000 people listen to his preaching and just let go of whatever it was they had brought with them that day. He created a safe space, where you could let go of your pride, let go of your self-consciousness, let go of everything, and just focus on what he was saying.

He created that one on one and he created it one on 100,000.

When you were interviewing Graham for your book, it seemed like he crossed the boundary between a journalist and an interview subject. Did he pray with you?

He did pray with us. It was natural as breathing. That was absolutely just the most natural thing in the world for him. He is someone who made a deep impression on everyone he encountered. We were not looking to trick him. We were looking to see if he could help us understand what his experience was like in his interactions with every modern president, starting with Harry Truman.

Today, the National Council of Churches (NCC) announced plans to hold a rally to end racism on the National Mall on April 4. The A.C.T. to End Racism Rally is the starting point of a multi-year effort, launched by NCC, to remove racism from the nation’s social fabric and bring the country together.

In remembrance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who inspired and challenged America to confront and put an end to racism, the rally will take place on the day the nation marks 50 years since his assassination. “We have for too long lived under the scourge of racism in our society. To begin the process of healing our nation, we as Christians must join with people of all faiths in holding ourselves accountable for our complicity, and commit to righting the wrongs,” said Jim Winkler, president of NCC.

NCC and its coalition of over 50 partners recognize that the faith community and those of moral conscience have a specific responsibility to address and eliminate racism, but also unique gifts that enable them to do so. “As we look at our society today, it is painfully evident that the soul of our nation needs healing. We must not only pray, but take concrete action to realize and achieve racial and social justice, and we cannot possibly put an end to racism unless we commit to change at all levels — including within the faith community,” said Bishop W. Darin Moore, chair of the Governing Board for NCC.

“Christian churches, present in every town and community across the country, are both part of the problem and the solution. NCC and our partners are committed to addressing the systemic evil that many Christians and church institutions have yet to fully acknowledge,” said Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins, Director of the Truth and Racial Justice Initiative for NCC.

April 3:6:00 p.m. ET: Orthodox Christian Bridegroom Service of Holy Tuesday;8:00 p.m. ET: Then and Now: An Ecumenical Gathering to End Racism

April 4: Silent March (starting near the MLK Jr. Memorial), Interfaith Service, and A.C.T. to End Racism Rally on the National Mall, 7:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. ET

April 5: National Day of Advocacy & Action

The rally is open to all people of faith and moral conscience. To learn more about the rally, visit: www.rally2endracism.org.

About the National Council of ChurchesThe National Council of Churches is the nation’s largest ecumenical body and includes more than 45 million members. Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC’s 38 member communions form a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace churches.

SOURCE: National Council of Churches

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/national-council-of-churches-announces-april-4th-a-c-t-to-end-racism-rally-on-national-mall-yolanda-adams-marvin-sapp-vashti-mckenzie-jim-wallis-and-raphael-warnock-among-special-guests-set/feed/0Jim Caviezel Says He Believes He’s ‘Called’ to Play Biblical Roles to Show Hollywood Christhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/jim-caviezel-says-he-believes-hes-called-to-play-biblical-roles-to-show-hollywood-christ/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/jim-caviezel-says-he-believes-hes-called-to-play-biblical-roles-to-show-hollywood-christ/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 21:06:37 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418135Hollywood actor Jim Caviezel is gearing up for the release of his new film, “Paul, Apostle of Christ,” and says he feels called to make Christian films and share the love of Jesus Christ throughout his industry.

“Paul, Apostle of Christ,” hits theaters March 23rd and will bring to life the story of Saul of Tarsus, who was known for persecuting and murdering Christians but went on to become one of the most powerful and important figures of the Church after he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Caviezel said he wanted to do this film because it’s the “most important genre” for this time.

“Often times when we think about conversion, it’s not necessarily going to make us wealthier but it’ll do one thing, it’ll give us a heart filled with just great joy that we’ve been lacking,” Caviezel told the Christian Post at the National Religious Broadcasters’ convention on March 1.

“Certainly, in my industry I’ve seen so many that are wealthy but are dead,” he continued. “My Lord’s message to me was, ‘Ok you felt my love come through you. You can’t judge them, you have to be love for them because that’s the only Christ they’re going to know.'”

Caviezel, who plays Luke in the film, commended Paul’s example. When asked why he continues to do faith-based films although his industry often shuns Christianity, the actor made it clear that he’d rather serve God than the shallowness of Hollywood.

“I’ll be point blank with you, my industry has been around for a century, the word of God has been around for 5,000 years if you want to go back to Moses and Abraham,” stated Caviezel.

“Am I the right guy [for the parts]? No, I never thought I was the right guy to play Jesus [either] but a friend of mine told me this, he said – ‘God doesn’t always choose the best, but He chose you so what are you gonna do about it?'” the “Passion of Christ” actor shared.

Caviezel admitted that he enjoys the moral values he gets to take away from playing religious figures.

“I look at the role of Luke, to be whole (body, mind and spirit,). Now my industry says to be whole in body and the mind but not in the spirit,” he maintained. “The spirit is what motivates.”

In “Paul, Apostle of Christ” you will hear Paul boast only of his weaknesses, a quality not often seen in entertainers who are constantly praised for their work. The 49-year-old explained that it’s easy to get an “ego” in his industry and then that same field can also be quick to turn on you.

Caviezel confessed that he “certainly,” feels like taking the role of these men of God on the silver screen is a “calling.” The Washington State native also believes he’s meant to spread what those characters teach while in Hollywood with everyone he comes in contact with.

“I never focused on me, I just wanted to play the character well,” he said of his role as Luke. “Christians need to understand that we are 2.3 billion, that’s much bigger than 300 million people in the United States but if we want to hold the truth, we have to show it by love.”

39 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

———-

That night in Gethsemane, Jesus prayed and agonized until drops of blood came out from His skin. That night, Jesus prayed a mysterious prayer, an unusual prayer, a strange prayer. He said, “O God, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” What did He mean by, “Let this cup pass from me”? Imagine a child being given a cup of medicine; he immediately shrinks back. Then, at the bidding of his father, he takes it. That night, a bitter cup was offered to Jesus, and He shrank from it. Why? The cross had always been before Christ since the day of His baptism. He knew that He had to go to the cross to pay for our sins if we were to be saved. But here, in this dark hour, He found the cup bitter. In order for us to understand the chemical formula of the elixir in the cup that night, I want us to look into it deeply for a moment. I want us to see how much Christ endured that we might be forgiven of sin, that we might go to heaven, that we might have some hope of the solution for our problems.

The first element in that cup was physical pain. Men had died horrible deaths before but the death of the cross was something worse than any man knew. The death of the cross was said to be the worst possible torture that a man could endure. First, they would strip a man to the waist. Then they would tie his hands together, bend him over, and take long leather thongs embedded with lead or steel pellets, and beat him across the back until his back was in bloody ribbons. And many times the lash of those thongs would come around his face and take his eyes out of his sockets, even tear his teeth out. Often death followed just the scourging and flogging. But Jesus endured that kind of flogging

Then they took a crown of thorns and placed it on His brow, and His face bled as they tore His beard off. Then they spat in His face. Hatred, prejudice, intolerance, bigotry — all that the human heart could devise — was perpetrated against Christ. Yet, Christ was not killed by Rome or Israel. Christ was crucified by you and me; my sins and your sins crucified Him. We had a part in it, all mankind did. The human heart is expressed in that cross as they flogged Him, beat Him, spit on Him, and shoved a crown of thorns on His head.

Then they gave Him a heavy cross to carry. He stumbled along the road with that cross until Simon of Cyrene had to come and help Him. And I am certain Simon, today in heaven, is thrilled and proud of the fact that he helped Jesus carry the cross. Have you helped Jesus to carry the cross, or were you one of those putting nails in His hands? You say, “But, I would never put a nail in Jesus’ hands. I would never flog Him.” Wouldn’t you? You did it today! The sin that you committed today helped to crucify Christ because those people in the first century were all representative of us. We were expressing ourselves in them. You and I helped crucify Jesus.

Then they took Him to Golgotha’s mountain, and they put spikes in His hands. They tore His hands and His feet. Yet He never uttered a sound. He suffered pain and thirst. He hung hour upon hour on that terrible cross. Often, when a person was dying on a cross the ravenous birds would come with their iron-like talons and beaks and pick at him while he was still alive. That was the cross.

Now, we begin to see why the night before He died, Jesus was on His knees before God saying, “O God, if it is possible to save Billy Graham, if it is possible to save Jim Jones, if it is possible to save men and women some other way without me having to endure that pain, O God, find it.” But there was no other way to be found. Jesus had to suffer the pain that you and I would have had to suffer in order for us to be saved.

——-

Now, if you are with us today and you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, allow me to show you how you can place your faith and trust in Him for Salvation from sin and Hell.

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the Cross, was buried, and rose again, allow me to say, congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior today, please email me at dw3@gospellightsociety.com and let us know. There is some free material that we want to send you. If you have a prayer request, please e-mail that to us as well, and we will pray for you until you tell us to stop.

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.

Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.

He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.

He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.

On a strip of Wilshire Boulevard, not far from where the rapper Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in a drive-by shooting some 20 years ago, a black plastic pool had been placed on the sidewalk outside the El Rey Theater. It was a balmy December afternoon, and the theater had been transformed into an assembly for Zoe Church, a two-and-a-half-year-old evangelical congregation that got its start in a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.

Today was Baptism Sunday and nearly a dozen adults signed up, cheered on by a crowd of mostly 20-somethings who were gathered behind a metal barricade. Chad Veach, the 38-year-old founder of Zoe, who moved to West Los Angeles from Seattle in 2014, chewed gum as he danced to a pop gospel playlist blaring overhead. “Let’s go!” he shouted, clapping. A pair of muscular men dunked a woman in the waist-high water. She surfaced, arms pumping the air, as a friend snapped photographs that were later posted on Instagram.

One man behind the barricade was so moved that he called for the preacher to purify his soul right then. He slipped a black Zoe T-shirt over his jeans, covered his nose and waded into the pool. Afterward, he looked dazed, swaddled in a black towel.

Zoe — pronounced “zo-AY, like, be-yon-SAY,” as Mr. Veach often says — is one of the newest in a wave of youth-oriented evangelical churches making their homes here. While most are content to have a church and a campus or two, Mr. Veach is claiming nothing less than Los Angeles County and its population of 10 million. “We’ll have many locations,” he said of Zoe. He is opening a San Fernando Valley campus on Sunday and plans one more per year for the next decade or so.

Mr. Veach has many neighbors. Hillsong, the Australian granddaddy of them all, arrived in Los Angeles in 2014, taking over a theater downtown. Seattle’s Churchome, formerly known as the City Church, has an outpost in Beverly Hills. Mosaic, a homegrown megachurch, has three churches, including in Pasadena and Venice. Zoe resides somewhere in between, within the Miracle Mile, a neighborhood nickname derived from retail that now seems newly apt.

Mr. Veach has eagerly embraced his adopted city. Nearly 1,600 people show up for his weekly services. He recently started Zoe TV on a YouTube channel. In 2017, he published, “Faith Forward Future: Moving Past Your Disappointments, Delays and Destructive Thinking,” which was promoted on Instagram by the actor Chris Pratt, a Zoe regular. And Mr. Veach is a 24-hour-a-day presence on Instagram: photographed at the gym or beach, singing car karaoke with the pop star Justin Bieber, watching the Lakers, even waiting for the valet.

“Instagram built our church,” he said one afternoon at his office here a block from the El Rey Theater. “Isn’t that fascinating?”

Mr. Veach believes he can save souls by being the hip and happy-go-lucky preacher, the one you want to share a bowl of açaí with at Backyard Bowls on Beverly Boulevard, who declines to publicly discuss politics in the Trump era because it’s hard to minister if no one wants to come to church. Jesus is supposed to be fun, right?

“I want to be loud and dumb,” Mr. Veach said with a wide, toothy grin. “That’s my goal. If we aren’t making people laugh, what are we doing? What is the point?”

Welcome to the Onward Christian Soldiers Discipleship Class. I am Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society and pastor of Gospel Light House of Prayer International. The purpose of this time together is to teach young believers everything they need to know about their faith in Jesus Christ and provide them with the knowledge they need to live victorious Christian lives.

Our key Bible verse is 1 Corinthians 10:13:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

— PRAYER —

Our lesson today is titled “How to Overcome Temptation, Part 75”

In this section of our Onward Christian Soldiers discipleship class, we are looking at specific temptations that are, as the Bible says, “common to man.” We are looking at what the Bible says about these sins so we can be aware of its dangers and so that we can hide Scripture in our hearts to use when we are tempted.

The sin that we are looking at today is the sin of “sloth.” This is the fourth sin in a list of 12 temptations that comes from two sources — one ancient and one modern. The first source is a list that was developed by monks in the early church called “the seven deadly sins” or the “cardinal sins.” The second source is a Barna survey from 2011 which tracked the top temptations Americans admitted to struggling with.

Today, we will be looking at Proverbs 10:4. (Remember, the text of this lesson is made available online after each class, so you can go to our website GLHOPI.com, click the “Onward Christian Soldiers” banner on the home page, and begin to learn these verses by heart throughout the week.)

Proverbs 10:4

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

—–

There is a great debate happening in our society today about wealth and inequality. Many people seem to be upset at billionaires and Fortune 500 CEOs who have amassed huge fortunes. They feel like their money ought to be redistributed to poorer people. However, while the rich do have a responsibility to help the poor, we must understand that many wealthy individuals in our society worked hard, worked long, and worked smart to get what they have today. Think of Bill Gates and Microsoft, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway. All of these people created something from scratch, worked on it until it became a success, and now they are reaping the benefits. That is what Proverbs 10:4 is talking about.

This verse contrasts the diligent and the slackers. A diligent person is one who is “constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything; pursuing something with persevering, painstaking attention.” The multinational, billion-dollar companies that exist were not built in a day. Somebody had to work diligently to get those companies off the ground — often beginning with one product being made in a garage or basement. But diligent work often brings great riches in the end.

The slacker, on the other hand, is someone who is “negligent, careless, or remiss; slow, sluggish, or indolent; not active or busy.” This type of behavior leads to poverty. Diligent action leads to positive dividends; slack, or the lack of action, leads to devastating results. We see here that a connection is made between work and wealth. If you want wealth, you must work. Instead of getting angry at the so-called “elite,” or the “wealthiest three percent,” set your hand to diligent labor. If you work hard now, in the future, you can obtain a comfortable — and possibly materially abundant — life for yourself and your family. It is a tried and true principle of the Word of God.

If you struggle with sloth or laziness, take this passage to heart and begin to use it the next time you face that temptation.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

If you do not know Jesus Christ as your Saviour, John 3:16 states, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The Bible also says in Romans 10:9 and 13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved…. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and I want to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Him as my Savior and follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

Until next time, May the Lord Bless You!

Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.

He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.

He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/listen-how-to-overcome-temptation-part-75-onward-christian-soldiers-199-with-daniel-whyte-iii/feed/0Your Church Might be Dying if it’s Focused Around One of These 8 ‘Sins’http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/your-church-might-be-dying-if-its-focused-around-one-of-these-8-sins/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/your-church-might-be-dying-if-its-focused-around-one-of-these-8-sins/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 20:35:14 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418108

by Bill Wilson

All organizations, including churches, have a reason for being. Only a few actually know that reason and articulate it and live into it. Sometimes the reason is clear and crisp, other times it is fuzzy and nebulous. Some choose their “why” intentionally, others do so accidentally or allow others to choose it for them.

Clarity about this is essential for a congregation to have a vibrant future. Those churches that define and differentiate themselves in a healthy way will be the ones that have a chance to manage the challenges of the 21st century successfully. Those who do not will probably not survive past mid-century.

When it comes to our primary purpose for being, it has been helpful for me to observe churches and try to understand what it is that resides at the center of their attention, focus, funding and shared vision. I’m into my fifth decade of local church ministry, and have had the privilege of walking alongside many, many congregations and faith communities from a wide array of traditions as they seek to be faithful to their calling. This pivotal question, “What is your primary reason for being?”, has emerged as my first question for assessing the health of a congregation.

In alphabetical order here are eight common scenarios I’ve observed, and one that I can only hope will continue to emerge as a healthy alternative. Please know, this is simply an exercise in hyperbole — no church fits neatly into any one category, and there are many more categories than listed here!

Building-Centric. Some congregations have come to see their facilities as their primary identity and reason for being. Every decision is run through a filter that assumes the primacy of the facilities. Nothing can be considered without taking into account how it will impact facilities or the campus. The church eventually exists to care for its facilities, and its mission is dictated by the building(s).

Denomination-Centric. This type of church is waning and rapidly disappearing, due to the implosion of denominational organizations of every type. Its primary task is to play out the role and programs that its denomination tells it to. Very little original thought or local initiative is required to be this sort of church. Like a chain restaurant, the church simply serves up whatever the denomination sends them or tells them to do.

Doctrine-Centric. At the heart of this church is a rigid adherence to some faith confession or doctrinal stance. This can be a very conservative and strict church that tolerates little deviance from a shared doctrine, or it can be a very liberal and permissive church that tolerates little deviance from a shared doctrine. Both types of churches are marked by smug intolerance, demeaning of those who differ, and a lack of humility, compassion and basic love for the people God places around them.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/your-church-might-be-dying-if-its-focused-around-one-of-these-8-sins/feed/0Experts Aim to Measure President Trump’s True Effect On the Evangelical Churchhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/experts-aim-to-measure-president-trumps-true-effect-on-the-evangelical-church/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/experts-aim-to-measure-president-trumps-true-effect-on-the-evangelical-church/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 20:15:28 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418071FILE- In this Oct. 30, 2016, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stands during a service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Continuing evangelical support for a scandal-ridden president is undermining the conservative white church and could even spell the death of Christianity in the United States, according to some experts on American culture, politics and faith.

But how will anyone be able to tell if that’s true given that religion has been in a well-documented national decline for decades already?

Statistically, it will be difficult at best, said Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI and author of The End of White Christian America.

“These trends have been in place well before [Donald] Trump,” Jones told Baptist News Global. “That’s going to be the tricky part in terms of measuring a Trump effect.”

That effect may also be hard to detect because it’s unlikely to be dramatic or sudden, said Stephen Mansfield, author of Choosing Donald Trump: God, Anger, Hope, and Why Christian Conservatives Supported Him.

“I don’t think it’s going to be an upheaval that causes church closures and destruction,” he said. It’s more likely to be a continuing departure of young evangelicals and African Americans from conservative churches and movements.

“We are seeing a gradual drift,” Mansfield said.

But the longstanding descent of faith in America has been much more than a drift.

White Christians represent less than half of the U.S. public. PRRI reported in September that 43 percent of Americans identify as white Christians, and only 30 percent of them are Protestants. By comparison, 81 percent of white Americans identified as Christians in 1976, and 55 percent were Protestants.

White evangelical Protestants are right in the middle of the decline with mainline and Catholic Christians, PRRI reported.

Meanwhile, white evangelicals are aging. The study found that 62 percent of them are 50 or older, which is the same for white Catholics. Just under 60 percent of while mainliners are 50 or older.

Age — and particularly youth — is a major factor for experts tracking the potential impact of Trump support on the future of evangelicalism.

The Pew Research Center has published a series of surveys over the years tracking the rise of Americans claiming no particular faith.

“The growth in the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans — sometimes called the rise of the “nones” — is largely driven by generational replacement, the gradual supplanting of older generations by newer ones,” Pew said in a 2012 study. It reported that a third of young adults are in that category.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/experts-aim-to-measure-president-trumps-true-effect-on-the-evangelical-church/feed/0What Christian Conservatives in Alabama Are Doing After Roy Moore’s Defeat in Decemberhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/what-christian-conservatives-in-alabama-are-doing-after-roy-moores-defeat-in-december/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/what-christian-conservatives-in-alabama-are-doing-after-roy-moores-defeat-in-december/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 20:10:31 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418102The American and Alabama state flags are displayed beneath a cross inside the church where Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roy Moore, spoke to the congregation of Kimberly Church of God on Sunday, June 28, 2015, in Kimberley, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

As national pundits reveled or puzzled over Roy Moore’s stunning defeat in December, the Rev. James Henderson went to work to rally the evangelical flock.

Strengthen anti-illegal immigration enforcement in Alabama, and adhere to the provisions of the state’s 2011 law that have not been “specifically banned by a liberal judge.”

“The core of Alabama Christian voters still believes the things that Roy Moore believes in,” said Henderson, executive director emeritus of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, who also served as Moore’s campaign manager during his 2010 gubernatorial run.

And looking ahead to the state’s 2018 elections, Henderson said, “So as far as Christians and turning out to vote, there won’t be much change in what we’ve seen.” In short, they’ll vote solidly Republican, he said, and, in the June 5 party primary, they’ll incline toward “the most conservative candidates in the race.”

Henderson and others on the Christian right feel confident that their voters will make themselves known in 2018, and loudly so.

If that turns out to be true, Alabama could experience the opposite the “blue wave” predicted elsewhere in the U.S. In many states, this year’s elections are being labeled as a referendum on the first two years of the Donald Trump administration. Political commentators are already talking of Democrats winning on many fronts, potentially taking control of Congress.

Alabama voters had a taste of that blue wave on Dec. 12, when Jones became the first Alabama Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in a quarter-century. Heading into the 2018 campaigns, Republicans hold six of seven U.S. House seats, enjoy super-majority status in the Legislature, and occupy all of the state’s executive offices.

“I see people who are angry about the election in December, and I believe more and more of the Republican Party, including Christian conservatives, will be out there on June 5 and again in November,” said Rich Hobson, Moore’s campaign chairman during last year’s election who is now seeking the U.S. House seat held by Republican Rep. Martha Roby.

“I do think there will be a strong desire among conservatives in Alabama to make a resurgence and reclaim their sort of kingmaker place in Alabama politics,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and a longtime observer of Southern politics. “I would expect them to be energized.”

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/what-christian-conservatives-in-alabama-are-doing-after-roy-moores-defeat-in-december/feed/0Hindu Nationalists Attack Pastor & His Family but Police File Charges Against Christianshttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/hindu-nationalists-attack-pastor-his-family-but-police-file-charges-against-christians/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/hindu-nationalists-attack-pastor-his-family-but-police-file-charges-against-christians/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 17:46:24 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418092Police in India’s Telangana state were reportedly pressured by Hindu radicals to file a case against a Christian pastor’s family after a group of drunken Hindu men were arrested for attacking the family and crushing their youngest son’s foot with a boulder.

According to Morning Star News, a group of young drunk men recently beat up the family of Pastor Kolhapuri Lachaiah Moses outside of their church in Ramachandrapuram village.

The altercation reportedly began when the family noticed motorcycles parked outside the church gates with a gang of men reading the church’s banner, which quotes 2 Corinthians 12:9. The words “My grace is sufficient for you” are written in Telugu.

The pastor told the news outlet that his family initially thought the men were there to get some water. However, it quickly became apparent that the men weren’t there for water when they began shouting derogatory caste remarks.

“The youths started shouting, ‘Where is the pastor idiot?'” Moses recalled. “‘Who gave you Christians the permission to set up a church here? You Shudras! Idiots! How dare you do Christian activities here?'”

The pastor went out to meet the men and asked what their fuss was about. Moses said he could smell the alcohol on their breath as he approached.

While the young men continued to make derogatory remarks, the pastor’s older son came out and asked the gang not to make so much noise.

The son, Kolhapuri Prabhakar, told Morning Star News that the men began beating his father when he came out.

“When I tried to stop them, they punched me too,” Prabhakar said. “My mother and sister also rushed to help us, only to be pushed away by the drunk men. They yelled, ‘We have been looking for you for the past six months, we got you today. We will not stop now.'”

The radicals went after Moses’ younger son, Kolhapuri Immanuel, when he called the police.

“Two of them held me by my hands, while the other threw that huge stone on my foot. I could not bear that pain,” the 20-year-old Kolhapuri told Morning Star News.

Because of the injury, Kolhapuri reportedly suffered a broken fifth metacarpal, which required foot surgery.

The family tried to confine the young men so that the police could arrest them when they arrived. Before the police arrived two of the men escaped, according to Moses.

Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police Abdul Kareem told Morning Star News that the culprits were identified as members of a Hindu nationalist student group affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is connected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The group the attackers belong to is called Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

The older brother, Prabhakar, complained about the attack at the local police station before taking his brother to the hospital. The police registered the cases against 20-year-olds Chaviti Sathya Shiva, Edavelli Karthik, Kalikota Sai Krishna, and 19-year-old Kanaparthi Sai Sunil.

“The accused ABVP youth have connections with the political leaders at state and central levels,” an anonymous police source told Morning Star News.

Because of those connections, pressure was placed on the police department to register a counter case against the persecuted Christian family.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/hindu-nationalists-attack-pastor-his-family-but-police-file-charges-against-christians/feed/0Here We Go: Pastor Says Northern Ireland Church Faces ‘Threat of Extreme Violence’ for Showing Film of Christians Turning Away From Homosexualityhttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/here-we-go-pastor-says-northern-ireland-church-faces-threat-of-extreme-violence-for-showing-film-of-christians-turning-away-from-homosexuality/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/here-we-go-pastor-says-northern-ireland-church-faces-threat-of-extreme-violence-for-showing-film-of-christians-turning-away-from-homosexuality/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 17:46:15 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418085A pastor in Northern Ireland says his church is facing a threat of “extreme violence” after it screened a film featuring people who are turning away from the homosexual lifestyle.

Rodney Stout, the pastor of Ballynahinch Baptist Church in County Down, said critics have used “the threat of extreme violence to try to prevent the film being shown,” according to Belfast Telegraph.

The documentary, “Voices of the Silenced: Experts, Evidences and Ideologies,” was shown at the church earlier this week, leading to protests outside the building.

The film, by Core Issues Trust, a charity supporting gay men and women “who voluntarily seek change in sexual preference and expression,” is about 15 ex-gays and ex-lesbians from across the U.S. and Europe who say they have made the decision to leave behind homosexual practices.

Emma Rogan, a lawmaker from the left-wing party Sinn Fein, joined the protesters outside the church on the day of the screening. “Conversion therapies” should not be allowed as there’s “nothing wrong with being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender,” she later said in a statement, according to News Letter.

The film’s producer, Mike Davidson, says the documentary “does not offer any information about how to ‘cure homosexuality.'”

Stout said he spoke to the protesters. “I was totally behind their right to be there,” he was quoted as saying. “Some were angry, but several of them agreed that we had the right to screen the film. I asked them if any minority group should have its right to be heard suppressed, and they said no.”

But some others, he added, “were trying to stir up controversy against us.”

“I’m not afraid for my safety or that of the people using the church building, I’m more afraid for the disservice it has done to the gay community.”

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/here-we-go-pastor-says-northern-ireland-church-faces-threat-of-extreme-violence-for-showing-film-of-christians-turning-away-from-homosexuality/feed/0A Secular Dallas Radio Station Played “I Can Only Imagine” as a Joke, Then Something Unexpected Happened…http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/a-secular-dallas-radio-station-played-i-can-only-imagine-as-a-joke-then-something-unexpected-happened/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/a-secular-dallas-radio-station-played-i-can-only-imagine-as-a-joke-then-something-unexpected-happened/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 17:42:24 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418035

I Can Only Imagine premiers this weekend in 1,600 theaters across the U.S. The movie is based on the story behind MercyMe’s 1999 song that captivated a nation. But how that happened has some of the band’s own members scratching their heads to this day.

The song was a huge hit on Christian radio, but it reached heights no one could have predicted four years later when some shock jocks on an FM rock station in Dallas played the song on a dare.

Fitz, Tony and Big Gay Steven, then-hosts of Wild 101 FM’s “The Fitz Show,” decided to play the song as nothing more than a joke. And when they did, something unexpected happened: The phone lines lit up with requests for “I Can Only Imagine” to be played again.

The song had already run its course in Christian radio and the band had moved on, but suddenly MercyMe was in a fascinating position, as a Christian song that was intended for praise and worship had made its way onto the secular airwaves—and people were loving it.

Soon, interest in the song snowballed and the band’s record label began sending copies of it to top 40 stations across the country, challenging program managers to play it. When they did, their phones blew up as well, with the masses wanting to hear more of the Christian song.

]]>http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/a-secular-dallas-radio-station-played-i-can-only-imagine-as-a-joke-then-something-unexpected-happened/feed/0China Bans Church Meetings, Places Christians Under House Arrest in Crackdown on Churcheshttp://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/china-bans-church-meetings-places-christians-under-house-arrest-in-crackdown-on-churches/
http://blackchristiannews.com/2018/03/china-bans-church-meetings-places-christians-under-house-arrest-in-crackdown-on-churches/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 17:38:21 +0000http://blackchristiannews.com/?p=418079Authorities in China’s central Henan Province have imposed an effective ban on Christian gatherings and placed several Christians under house arrest without charge as the Communist government continues to crack down on churches across the country, according to a report.

Police are keeping Christians in Shangqiu city under house arrest and watching their residences, requiring them to report where they are going every time they leave the house, according to the U.S.-based group ChinaAid, which reports on instances of religious persecution.

“I heard that many churches in Sheqi County also received a notice that believers cannot gather anymore,” an anonymous Christian source in Nanyang, Henan, was quoted as saying. “Christians are afraid of gathering and they don’t have anywhere to gather either. Times have changed. It feels like the Cultural Revolution.”

During the period of Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, then ruler Mao Zedong sought to eradicate all influences besides Communism and began to enforce atheism as the official religious belief of the Communist Party.

Churches in the cities of Zhumadian and Zhoukou and in Gushi County have also received a notice about the banning of religious activities in their areas until further notice.

In Tanghe County, authorities have ordered house churches to register with a government operated Three-Self Church, threatening that those who attend a house church would be fined $4,700.

Earlier this month, Father Francis Liu, a Chinese priest, shared a video showing local officials tearing down crosses from the Shangqiu Catholic Church South Cathedral during a major raid in Henan.

The cathedral, which was sanctioned by the government, was subjected to five hours of occupation, during which crosses were removed from the building.

According to the Catholic news site UCANews.com, this was the first time a Catholic church had its crosses removed in Henan.

The Chinese government routinely arrests and cracks down on local Christians.